


i'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you

by topangamatthews



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Romance, and he needs to learn some life lessons the hard way, basically mike wheeler is an idiot, like don't wait to ask your soulmate to the homecoming dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-02 03:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10935756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topangamatthews/pseuds/topangamatthews
Summary: Mike Wheeler is not El’s boyfriend. So why is he so jealous of the boy who’s trying to be? (In which Mike Wheeler is an idiot and waits too long.)





	1. you are the girl that i've been dreaming of

**September 1986**

 

Mike Wheeler is _not_ El Hopper’s boyfriend. 

Sure, he holds her hand in the dark of the movie theater, hands intertwined for two hours and laid across the velvet seats. And yes, they kiss sometimes when the rest of their friends aren't around and he just can't help himself because she is so, _so_ beautiful under the fluorescent lights in his basement or with the sun setting while he's dropped her off at her house. But he doesn't have the label. He doesn't need the label. The in between of friend and boyfriend is safe to him, it's familiar and he doesn't want it to change.

“Not having a label makes it confusing for everyone else,” Dustin told him.

“It really doesn't,” Mike responded, rolling his eyes.

“Remember when Jennifer Hayes asked El if she had a boyfriend and she said ‘no’ and then she saw you guys kissing at the park the next day? She thought she was lying! Didn't that make you feel bad?”

“I mean-.”

“Yeah,” Lucas interjected, “And when that girl gave you a Valentine and she asked you out. Poor El was just standing there not able to say anything.”

“We talked about-.”

“Or whenever you come over to our house,” Will interrupted, “Hopper always calls you El’s boyfriend and she always corrects him.”

“So,” Mike asked, confused as to what was so wrong with that.

“You don't see how sad she looks whenever she says you're not.”

Mike feels his stomach knot. He’d never noticed that. He knew she doodled suns on the palm of her hand when she got bored and that her mouth always quirked sideways at romantic scenes in movies. But he had never noticed her face when she corrected people on his correct term.

To him, she'd just always been El- his El. The girl he had saved from the pouring rain. The girl who had saved him so many more times after that. The girl he waited for when she left. The girl he stayed up thinking about at night and who he thought about during the day. She had always been more than a friend, more than girlfriend. She was El. Why wasn't that enough?

“If you don't put a label on your thing with El, it's gonna come back and bite you in the ass,” Dustin says his mouth full of chips.

“Doubtful,” Mike says, smirking. He notices El walking through the doors of the cafeteria, her hands carrying her binders and her backpack falling off her shoulder. He couldn't help but smile at her.

It had only been a couple weeks since their sophomore year of high school had started, but it was still El’s first time going to school with him. When she had come back during his eighth grade year, it was decided that she wasn't ready for public school, instead taking homeschool lessons. It'd been years now and so on that fateful Monday, September 1st, El was in enrolled in Hawkins High School with all her friends.

Mike still couldn't get over the sight of her at school. She sat next to him in English class. Her locker was only a few rows down from his. They would laugh together during lunch and walk home together when the day was done. His days were filled with her and he couldn't believe there had been a time when they weren't.

El slammed her binders down on the table.

“Boys,” she smiled, sitting down next to Mike and taking one of his fries.

“El, we were just talking about you,” Lucas told her, quickly glancing over at Mike just in time to see his panicked expression.

“Oh,” she raised her eyebrows, looking over at Mike, who was averting her gaze. “What about?”

“Why don’t you ask Mike,” Dustin waggled his eyebrows, taking a sip of his soda.

“Mike,” she asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes and playing along.

“Don’t do the eyes,” he pleaded, still not looking at her. He felt her head lean against his shoulder and he looked down to see her staring up at him, the beautiful brown eyes he loved so much turning against him. “Shit.”

“Did you say something bad about me?”

“I would never do that.”

“Then what was it?”

“Yeah, Mike,” Lucas said, mimicking El’s tooth achingly sweet tone. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything. You guys were the ones doing all the talking.”

“Your boyfriend is so rude,” Will told El, quickly dodging a fry that Mike threw at him and laughing. El laughed along with the boys, except Mike, whose blush was beginning to creep from his cheeks down to his neck.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he mumbled. “Right, El?”

She stopped laughing and looked at him, the rest of the table quieting down with her. “Of course. It was just a joke. Right, guys?”

The rest of the table nodded their hands, no one saying anything. A new, awkward tension invaded the table and Mike felt guilty for it. He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, if that’s what he had done. But she had said it herself, it was just a joke. It hurt him too much to have his feelings constantly on display, the ridicule of all his friends’ jokes. El would never seriously want to go out with a guy like him.

She was a superhero. She was gorgeous. She was so, so good.

He was a nerd. He was lanky. He was so, so out of her league.

Jokes about them being together were just a reminder of how embarrassing his situation was. His dream girl was a girl who didn’t dream of him back.

He looked over and saw El quietly writing in her notebook, going over the notes they had written in the morning during class. They had just started going over “Jane Eyre” and Mike thought maybe he’d ask for her opinion of it so far to ease the tension.

“Hey, El,” he started, but she stood up, telling the table she was going to buy an apple, still clearly upset. She left her backpack and her binders, leaving to the back of the cafeteria.

“Well nice going, Wheeler. Way to piss off your girlfriend,” Dustin said, breaking the silence.

“Shut up,” Mike groaned.

“Dude, stop being a baby and just ask her out already,” Lucas yelled, clearly exasperated at his friend.

“Seriously, Mike. I’m starting to feel really bad- for the both of you,” Will told him.

He wanted to believe his friends, to take their advice and think that everything would work out fine for him, for everyone. That he’d ask her out, they’d both be happy, and their friends would finally leave them alone about it. But he just couldn’t believe it. They’d fought a real life Demogorgon, but he just couldn’t see El wanting to be with him as a real possibility.

“What would I even say to her,” Mike asked.

“Ask her out to the homecoming dance next week! You guys already went to the snowball together in the eighth grade. This can be like, your first date,” Will suggested.

“I second that,” Lucas said. “You just need to do something already.”

Mike was already planning on how to bring up the idea to El. He would ask her on the bike ride home from school. Or he could slip a note in her locker. Maybe even surprise her with breakfast- Eggos, of course- in bed and some flowers. His thoughts were interrupted by Dustin’s voice, shaky and nervous.

“Guys, I think it may be a little too late for that.”

Mike turned around in the direction where Dustin was looking and saw it.

Brad Quill. He was one of the most popular boys at their school. A year older, rich, and on the varsity football team, he was the stuff legends in a small town were made of. For the boys, it didn’t help that he was six feet tall with blue eyes and a bright smile. For the girls, it did.

“What is he doing talking to El,” Mike asked, an unnerving feeling beginning to settle in the pit of his stomach. He had just told her something and she smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“This is exactly what I warned you about, man,” Dustin said.

“Maybe he’s just being friendly,” suggested Will, trying to comfort Mike. They saw Brad say something else to El, causing her blush and bite her lip. Mike tried to think if she had ever done that with him. He wasn’t sure.

“I’m going to puke,” Mike said, looking away from Brad and El and putting his head on the table. He felt terrible. As sickness prone as he was, he had never felt so genuinely sick in his entire life.

“Mike, don’t worry. El loves you,” Lucas said, looking overhead and hearing the bell, signaling everyone to go to class. “Just talk to her.”

One by one, everyone started filing out of the cafeteria. Mike stayed at the table, waiting for El to finish talking with Brad. When she did, she looked over to where Mike was, her smile fading as she walked over to him, wringing her hands together.

“I saved your stuff for you,” he told her, handing her backpack and folders.

“Thanks,” she said, taking it from him with a small smile.

“El, I’m sorry- about earlier with the guys. I just, I got embarrassed, you know? I…I think you’re great, El. You know that, right?”

“I know. It’s okay, Mike.”

“So we’re still friends?”

“Always.”

She gave him a genuine smile, the warmth from it reaching all the way to his heart. This was El. _His_ El. Maybe Lucas was right and he had nothing to worry about.

“Can I walk you to class?”

She nodded and led the way. They were quiet on the walk down the hallways, being the only ones left making their way to class. They kept looking at each other, smiling and bumping shoulders as they walked across the building.

“So what did Brad want,” he asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

El was silent for a few moments before she responded in a volume just above a whisper.

“He asked me out to the homecoming dance.”

Mike stopped right in front of El’s classroom, turning to her to see her expression, a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

“And what did you say?”

She opened the door of the classroom, answering him before it shut.

“I said yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey angels!!! it's 11 pm where i am and i have a final tomorrow but i'm writing and uploading this instead because i have no patience or self-control!!! this is my first ever multi-chapter fic ever and my first ever stranger things fic (gasp, i've read so many and this is my first time writing it) so let's see how it goes. pretty please let me know what you think because i have no idea if i should continue??
> 
> ((titles taken from "i'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you" by black kids, which is a cool song i forgot existed so now here we are))


	2. i'm biting my tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike Wheeler is not El’s boyfriend. So why is he so jealous of the boy who’s trying to be? (In which Mike Wheeler is an idiot and still stays quiet.)

When El came back in the fall of ‘84, Mike had held her in his arms as tight as he could and he felt her do the same. The months he had gone without her had felt like a separate lifetime each minute she had been away. A hundred years without her, and another, and another. Holding on to her with the backdrop of a Hawkins autumn night, chilly and black, he promised her in a whisper that he would never let her go again.

He had missed her too much. He had hurt more than a thirteen-year-old boy should have while she was gone. If the universe had given him another chance to be with her, he couldn't take it in vain. El was the coolest, kindest, most beautiful girl in the world, and the universe had given her to Mike Wheeler twice when he didn't even deserve her the first.

She had been gone and he had never lost hope that she would return.

Now he had lost her again, but he didn't think there would be any chance in the world she would go back to him.

Mike kept thinking that to himself as he walked back to his classroom. She was gone, gone, gone. He had had her minutes ago, and now she had vanished into the world of popular high school boys.

He was an idiot, such an idiot, for thinking that she would wait for him. Why would she ever do that when she could do so much better?

He felt like he was going to cry. A part of him wanted to skip the rest of his classes and go home and do just that. The worse part was that the thought didn't even seem ridiculous to him. He wasn't upset over just some girl, he was upset about _El_ , and she was so much more than that.

Instead of going home, he continued his walk down the hallway until he got to his classroom, ignoring the looks of his classmates as he walked in late. Dustin stared at him from his seat as he made his way to the back of the classroom to sit in the empty desk next to him, a blank look in his eyes.

“Mike, what happened,” he asked, the confusion and concern evident in his voice. But Mike closed his eyes and slammed his head on the desk in response, staying face down on the cool surface in hopes that it would be dark enough for him to pretend the world didn't exist.

He stayed like that the rest of the hour of class, eyes closed and head down, unmoving and trying to tune out the sounds of his teacher. When the bell rang and he heard the shuffling sounds of people leaving, Dustin began to try and pull him out of the seat.

“Jesus, Mike! Just get up already,” he breathed, dragging him away from the desk.

“Why can't you just leave me alone to die,” he said, melodramatically.

“Because I’d go to jail for letting you and I know their snacks are all the generic crap.”

Mike smiled a bit at that and then stopped. He felt guilty, smiling after knowing he had lost the love of his life and it was all his fault.

The thought of going home snuck its way into his mind again as they stepped out into the hallway. He saw couples holding hands, and thought of how badly he wanted to hold El’s. He saw the other girls, and thought to himself how they would never even compare to El. And then he saw Brad walk briskly by him, and thought to himself how he would never be him, and that's what El wanted.

Overwhelmed, he began to run in the other direction. He ignored Dustin’s yells after him and rushed away to where his bike was outside. He got on it and peddled away from school. Away, away, away.

* * *

_"El, is going with Brad Quill to the homecoming dance?!”_

_“What the hell happened, Mike?”_

_“Are you okay?”_

Dustin, Lucas, and Will all rushed into the basement, talking one over the other, taking Mike away from his thoughts. Since he had rushed home from school, he had been sitting at the table working on a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign and listening to a cassette tape on the walkman Nancy had left behind. Mike thought that maybe if he was working on something for his friends and his ears were filled with music he could get away from El for a while. Obviously, it hadn't worked.

“Guys, I don't want to talk about it,” Mike said, looking back down at his paper as he wrote down more details. Dustin reached over the table and yanked the headphones off of Mike’s ears, forcing him to pay attention to them.

“Is this why you left school? Because Brad asked El out to the dance before you did?”

Mike was quiet, trying to think of a different excuse he could give his friends, but ultimately knew they would be able to see through him. “How did you guys even find out?" 

“Dustin told us you were acting weird after lunch and so we asked El about it,” Will started, being interrupted by Lucas.

“She told us that she didn’t know why you were acting weird, but told us to tell her when we found out.”

“And that,” Dustin finished, “Is when she told us Brad Quill asked her out to dance, and I asked her if you knew already and she said yes. So we put two and two together.”

“Are you okay,” Will asked again, concerned about how quiet Mike was being. He closed the Dungeons & Dragons binder, standing up to put it away and avoid his friends’ gazes.

“Guys, I’m fine. El can do whatever she wants, and that includes going to the dance with someone who isn’t me.”

And it was true. Because as much as Mike hated to admit it, the reason El wasn’t going to the dance with him was because he didn’t ask. And even if he had asked, she still could have said no. Ever since El had left Hawkins Lab and had told him about everything she had gone through, he realized he didn’t want to be like the men who worked there. He didn’t want El to do anything she didn’t want to do and he didn’t want her to feel obligated to do anything. That included high school dances and Brad Quill.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re okay,” Lucas told him.

“I’m not pretending, I’m okay,” Mike said, feeling an overwhelming sense of frustration. Why couldn’t his friends just leave him alone? “Can we just talk about something else?”

And so the boys went off on a conversation about what Mike had missed in his last class and they discussed plans for the weekend. Lucas talked about how he planned to asked out Rebecca Foley for the dance on Monday and Will said he was still avoiding Jennifer Hayes because he didn’t know how to turn her down gently.

Mike laughed for hours, listening to his friends talk, and while it was a nice distraction, it didn’t last long.

That night, Mike laid in bed and thought about the same girl he had thought about every night since he was twelve. Only that night, Mike thought about how she was probably laying in bed thinking about a boy who wasn’t him.

* * *

 

El didn’t show up to his house all weekend. Normally, she would go over on Saturday afternoons and they would do homework together and on Sunday she would go to play games with the boys or watch movies. Every now and then they would bike into town for food or to take a walk around the park. But they weren't being normal now. He knew that.

Hopper would take El to school in the mornings and in the afternoons she would bike back home with the boys, so Mike didn’t expect to see her until he got to school. All morning he had been planning what he would say to her, if he even had to say anything at all. Maybe she wouldn’t bring up the dance and he could just pretend like nothing was happening.

His time for planning and hoping were cut short, however, when he walked out of his house and saw El waiting for him with her bike. He would usually ride to school with Lucas, but he wasn’t there. Instead, the girl he had been planning to avoid for as long as he could, was there looking as pretty as ever with a purple ribbon in her hair that matched her dress.

“Hi, Mike,” she said, almost timidly.

“What are you doing here,” he asked her, and he didn’t mean for it to come off as rude, but the flash of hurt that came across her face said otherwise.

“I just didn’t see you all weekend, and I missed you,” she answered, quietly. It made his chest tighten. “Is it okay if we ride to school together?”

He smiled softly and nodded, grabbing his bike and pedaling alongside her. They were both quiet for a few minutes, neither of them saying anything. He kept stealing glances at her and would notice that she was doing the same. But still, there was an unfamiliar feeling in the air with them. It was awkward and treacherous, and he knew they had to talk about Friday, but he didn’t want to.

Finally, it was El who spoke up. “Are you mad at me?”

He looked at her so that she knew he was sincere. “I could never be mad at you." 

“Friends don't lie.”

Mike cursed himself for ever teaching her that. Every time she said it, it was like a spell she was inducing him under, causing him to be at his most vulnerable and transparent. He couldn’t count the number of times she had gotten him to admit things with those three little words.

He breathed in exasperation. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because of Brad.”

“I'm not mad at you. I’m just confused. I didn't know you were friends with Brad.”

“I'm not. I think I had seen him before once. I was surprised when he asked me out on Friday. I only said yes because…”

She quieted down, making Mike turn to look at her.

“Because?”

She averted her gaze. “Nothing, I just wanted to go to the dance and he asked me.”

“Oh.”

They were quiet again as they turned into the school, parking their bikes and securing them with their locks.

El spoke up again, grabbing Mike by his arm to stop him from leaving. “This doesn't change anything, Mike. You're still my favorite.”

He laughed at that. It had been a joke between them, calling each other their “favorites” ever since their friends had suspected El of favoritism in an argument a couple years ago. When she had asked what it meant and they told her that it meant she liked Mike more than anyone else, she unashamedly agreed that it was favoritism.

Now it had become their nicknames for each other in their moments alone. Mike was glad to know that at least that wouldn’t change.

“You're my favorite, too.”

She smiled.

“Cool.”

He smiled back.

“Cool.”

 And it seemed familiar.

* * *

Their English class together had gone fine, more than fine, laughing as usual as if nothing had happened, passing notes under the table like secret crushes. When they had gone their separate ways, she told him she’d see him at lunch and Mike was excited to see her again. He had gone days without her and now he just had to wait a few hours to hear her laughing at him again, stealing his food, just being with him.

Mike was already sitting with the rest of the boys when he saw her walk in, beautiful as always. She smiled and began to walk towards him, and in what seemed like slow motion, was stopped by Brad. Mike felt his smile fall as Brad talked to her, El talking politely back to him. He saw her point to their table and then he saw Brad point to his.

Mike and the rest of the boys looked on in anticipation, until Brad finally walked back to his table in the back of the cafeteria and El continued her walk to her usual table.

“Guys,” she started off quietly, “Is it okay if I go sit with Brad and his friends? They want to meet me.”

“You don’t have to ask for permission. Go and have fun,” Mike said.

She smiled down at him, “Thanks, Mike.”

As she walked away, Dustin told her to give his phone number to one of the hot cheerleaders and she simply moved her head in response, making some of his chocolate milk spill on his shirt. The rest of the boys laughed, and El through a glance back at Mike, winking at him and causing him to blush, before she walked to Brad and his friends.

Mike had felt a lot better since their talk in the morning. He wanted to believe that what she said about nothing in their relationship changing was true, and for the most part he did. But he saw the way everyone at the table gushed over El and the way she smiled back at them. The guys were all football players, the girls were all cheerleaders, and El looked like she belonged.

“What if El becomes a cheerleader,” Dustin said. Mike gulped at the thought of El in the short skirted uniform and then quickly tried to change his thoughts to something else.

“She’s definitely gonna stop hanging out with nerds like us and start hanging out with the popular people,” Lucas added.

“Nothing is gonna change,” Mike said, trying to reassure his friends, trying to reassure himself.

But the rest of the lunch, he spent it looking at El and she spent it looking at other people.

* * *

 

She ended up not hanging out with the boys that afternoon either and the next day she gave them a simple wave hello during school and walked promptly to Brad’s table.

Mike felt beyond jealous now. Now he was mad at her. He had never been mad at El before, not really, but now it seemed like she had forgotten who her real friends were, who he was. He was about to tell his friends how he felt about the whole situation, when she walked through the basement.

“Hi guys,” she said casually, dropping her backpack on the floor and walking over to where Mike was sitting on the couch with an easygoing smile.

She had a light pink flower in her hand with dark speckles all over it. _Probably a gift from Brad_ , thought Mike, right before El sat next to him and handed it to him instead. “I rode by this on the way here and thought of you because of all the freckles.”

Mike told himself to fight off a smile as he took it from her, twirling it around in his fingers as he looked at it. He was supposed to be mad at her, but it was just so damn hard when El made him feel so damn happy. She was probably the only person in the world who found his freckled face charming, who would see a flower and think of him. _Damn it, El._

“Aww, isn’t that sweet,” Dustin asked Mike, his cheeky smile making the rest of the boys laugh.

“Yeah,” Mike said quietly, still not looking up from the flower, “really sweet.”

El stared at him, waiting for him to say something else, but she eventually gave up. She looked at the other boys, trying to fill the empty silence. “So what were you guys talking about?”

They launched into their discussion of the dance, of how Lucas had gotten a date with Rebecca and Will and Dustin were planning on going on their own and finding people to dance with there. They asked El what the popular people were like and she said that they were surprisingly nice. “Not like in the movies,” she told them.

She told them how the girls had invited her to go dress shopping for the next day after school and how the boys were all funny and kind to their girlfriends. She said how she was excited to go in Brad’s car to the dance, seeing as how she’d never had a friend drive her anywhere. Throughout all of it, Mike stayed quiet, keeping a neutral expression on his face. 

El noticed, turning to look at him every time she laughed to see if he was laughing, too, but every time she did, he wasn’t. It wasn’t until everyone was getting their things ready to leave that she spoke up about it.

“What’s wrong, Mike,” she basically screamed.

“What,” he asked her. 

“You haven’t talked all day.”

“I talked. You just weren’t there to hear me.”

She crossed her arms in front of her. “What does that mean?”

“We hardly seen you the past few days.”

“Are you jealous of my new friends? Because Dustin and Lucas and Will aren’t. They’re happy for me.”

The boys mumbled responses of neutrality and put their hands in up defense, trying to get their things quicker so that they could leave.

“Nothing is wrong. I’m not jealous. Just leave me alone,” Mike said, brushing past her.

She was mad at him. He could tell from the look on her face, slanted eyes and pouted lips on a face slowly turning red. “You know where to find me if you want to talk,” she said, grabbing her backpack off the floor.

“Yeah, Brad Quill’s table.”

She slammed the basement door as she left, giving him a hurt look before she did. He knew he shouldn’t have said that, but he just couldn’t help it. Couldn’t she see how much she was hurting him, too?

“That was really messed up,” Lucas told him.

“I’ll apologize tomorrow,” Mike said.

“That’s not the point! You’re complaining about El and Brad, but when El wants to talk to you, you stay quiet.”

“Seriously,” said Dustin, “I can’t pity you anymore if you’re the one screwing yourself over.”

“There’s nothing I can do! El is with Brad now,” Mike yelled back.

“She's going to a dance with him, she's not engaged! Stop being a baby and tell her how you feel before she really starts to get serious with him. That’s when you’ll be screwed.”

Dustin and Lucas both walked out the basement door, throwing judgmental glances at him before they closed it. Will stayed behind, still gathering up his things.

“She likes you more than you think she does. 

“What?”

“El,” he said, clearing his throat. “I don't know why you think she doesn't like you, when it's obvious to everyone she does- a lot. So just...don't overthink it and be honest with her.”

Mike smiled, feeling better, honestly better, for the first time. “Thanks, Will.”

“You’ll be okay, Mike Wheeler,” he said, putting his backpack on and walking outside, “You always are.”

And he thought to himself that maybe he would be. Obviously, not that day, not with El mad at him. Not with his friends upset with him. Not with him mad at himself for not being honest about his feelings.

But soon, hopefully, he would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor baby mike. It’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better ://
> 
> thank you all so much for your sweet words + kudos + subscriptions!! it means more to me than you could ever know and it really did encourage me to type this update for you guys faster!! all my love xx


	3. he's kissing on you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike Wheeler is not El’s boyfriend. So why is he so jealous of the boy who’s trying to be? (In which Mike Wheeler is an idiot and walks away.)

After all his friends had left, Mike had found himself feeling distracted. He tried to finish his homework, but he kept thinking about what he was going to do about El. At dinner, he spoke up maybe twice at the questions of his mom about how school had gone.

The truth was, though Will had encouraged him to be honest with El, he still wasn't entirely convinced. If he spoke up about their unspoken thing, it would change things. Maybe they would realize they were better off as just friends and when they went back to that, things would be ruined. Or maybe he would be the only happy one in their relationship. There was the slight possibility that everything would be okay -- they'd be together, get married, have a couple kids, the works -- but Mike couldn't see any of that happening for him, especially not with the best person he knew. 

He stayed up past eleven that night, not being able to quiet his thoughts despite his best efforts. He knew if there was one person who could tell him exactly what he had to do, it would be Nancy.

She had gone to college in Chicago and the time difference of an hour meant that Mike usually had to stay up later to wait until she got home to call her. When she had left, he didn't think that he would miss her, but he found himself talking to her more now that she was away than when she was there.

Peering at his clock on the nightstand, he decided that she was probably back at her dorm by then. He tiptoed out of his room and down the stairs to the kitchen, quiet so that he wouldn't wake anyone else up and get in trouble for still being awake.

He sat on the kitchen counter near the phone, dialing his sister’s phone number by memory and spinning the cord around on his fingers as he waited for her to answer. After the third ring, she picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Nancy,” he breathed, relieved to hear his sister’s voice, “It’s Mike.”

“Is something wrong? It's past eleven on a school night.”

“No, no! Well...yes, but not wrong. It's just...I need your advice and I couldn't sleep and I know you're probably busy with school stuff right now, but I just really had to talk to you because I don't know what to do-.”

“Jesus! Breathe, Mike,” she laughed through the phone, making him feel more at ease.

“I need advice about El.”

“About how much you like her?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, this is really serious.” He could almost hear her eyebrows raise in surprise. Nancy loved teasing Mike about his crush on El, loved seeing the red blush creep from his cheeks down to his neck and the way he would try to deflect his comment with a “shut up, we’re just friends.” So the fact that he was openly admitting to his feelings meant that something was wrong.

Mike continued to tell her about everything that happened in the past few days. He told her how El had been asked by Brad to the homecoming dance before he had even gotten the chance. He told her how she had been hanging out with the popular kids during lunch the past two days and how that afternoon had been her first time really hanging out with guys since Friday. He told her how he missed her, how he liked her, how he didn’t know what to do to get his friend back.

“Mike,” Nancy said, her tone surprisingly sweet, “You and Eleven have never been just friends. You know that. From the very beginning, you guys have always been more and that’s the whole problem. She’s not your friend, and she knows that. You know that.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Be honest with her!”

“I’m scared,” he yelled, before quickly slapping his hand to mouth, remembering that everyone else in the house was asleep.

“Listen, not talking to her is still talking to her. If you don’t say anything, she’s going to think you don’t care and that’s not true. So tomorrow, just ask her if you guys can talk and be honest with her.”

“You really think she’s gonna leave the popular guy for the nerdy nobody?" 

“She would if you gave her the chance.”

He knew she wasn’t talking about him and El.

During her senior year, before she had made any final decisions to leave to Chicago, she had been having drama with Jonathan and Steve. She had been with Steve for a year, but her feelings for Jonathan had been transparent to everyone around. From what Mike had understood, Nancy had even told Jonathan that she would break up with Steve for him. But Jonathan had told her he didn’t like her, even though it was clear to everyone that it was a lie. So Nancy broke up with Steve and left both of her loves behind to study Women’s Literature in Chicago, and she hadn’t spoken to either since.

Mike couldn’t think what he would do if El left to another state and he never talked to her again. As hard as Nancy tried to appear put together, he knew she was still hurt that she had put herself out there and had been rejected. But then, what would El feel if he never told her how he was truly feeling?

El had told him once how she hated the dark because she didn’t like not knowing what was going on around her, and his silence was doing just that: putting her in the dark. He had to be open about his feelings.

“Thank you, Nancy. I know just what to do now,” Mike smiled, it quickly fading when he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.

“No problem. You know you can call me if you ever need anythi-.”

“Uh huh. Gotta go. Love you. Bye,” he said, quickly hanging up the phone and hopping off the counter right before his mom appeared at the doorway of the kitchen.

“Michael Wheeler, what are you still doing awake,” she scolded.

“Umm, I just had a homework question for Nancy. It was about ‘Jane Eyre,’ for my English class. That’s kind of her expertise.”

She breathed in exasperation, pointing up the stairs and telling him to go to bed because if he woke up Holly, he’d be the one dealing with her all night. He obeyed and on his way up he thought about what he had told Nancy before he rushed to hang up the phone.

_Had he told Nancy he loved her? Gross._

* * *

The next morning, Mike went to school earlier than usual, wanting to get there before El. He had written her a note before he went to bed and wanted her to see it in the morning when she got her books for her first classes.

He walked down the hallway, to her locker, opening it up. He had known the combination by heart, having helped El with the lock on the first day of school when she couldn’t get it open.

“Can’t I just use my powers to get it open,” she had told him, partly teasing, but mostly serious.

“Only if you’re okay with getting nosebleeds three times a day,” he had smirked.

Now, opening it up, he looked at the pictures that she had taped inside. One was a picture Jonathan had taken of her and Hopper on the day of her adoption, both of them smiling so wide that it overpowered most of the frame. Another was of her and the rest of the boys on New Year’s Eve, all of them dressed up nicely in Mike’s basement with glasses of apple cider in their hands and arms around each other. The last was a polaroid of Mike that she had taken on a trip near the lake with the camera she had gotten for her birthday.

His eyes were closed and he was giving her a shy smile, a classic Mike smile, boyish and bashful, and her free hand was on his cheek. He remembered how she had begged him for a photo, how she wanted to remember him with all his freckles and his heart, and when the photo was finally developed, she had whispered “beautiful” before carefully tucking it away in her backpack. It had made his heart race, how fragile she was with it, and now, seeing it up in her locker and knowing she looked at it almost every day, it produced the same reaction.

Mike took his note out of the back pocket of his jeans, unfolding the lined sheet of paper to make sure one last time that there were no errors written in the blue ink.

_El,_

_I’m sorry about the few past days. This note isn't an apology. I want to do that in person. Meet me after school under the bleachers?_

_Your (hopefully, still) favorite,_

_Mike_

He folded it back and softly pressed his lips to it, immediately feeling silly for doing so, and put it on top of her textbooks so that she would be sure to see it.

“Please show up, El,” he whispered, closing the locker and walking away, ready to let her decide where their relationship would go.

* * *

 

She hadn’t showed up to English class and she hadn’t been around the cafeteria during lunch time either. Brad had even walked up to their table and asked them if El had gone to school that day, but none of them had seen her.

Was she still mad? Had she even showed up to school? What if she had seen the note and gone back home? There was an unsettling feeling in Mike’s stomach as the thought entered his brain, but he quickly tried to make it go away.

On the way to his class after lunch, he saw her in the sea of people rushing through the hallway. She was at her locker, and he realized that she was just getting to school. Frozen in his tracks, he saw her take the note and read it, waiting to see her reaction to it. A sense of both relief and excitement washed over him as he saw her smile down at it and bite her lip, putting the note in the pocket of her jean skirt before getting the books she needed and practically running to her class.

Suddenly, Mike believed in all the possibilities of a future with El. And hopefully, he only had to wait a couple hours for it to begin.

He couldn’t stop smiling at everyone and everything. All his teacher’s jokes seemed so much funnier. The rest of his problems seemed so much smaller. Dustin had even asked him if he was high or something, he seemed so giddy.

When the bell finally rang for the last time at 3:15, Mike ran like he never had before to the football field towards the back of the school. His heart was beating so fast and loud, he swore people could see his heart thumping through his shirt. His hands were shaky and the smile on his face couldn’t be wiped away with anything.

Until it was.

When he saw El in the distance, waiting underneath the bleachers like he asked her to, he began to slow down. He didn’t want to look like an out of breath idiot in front of her. As he began to walk near her though, he saw that she wasn’t alone.

Brad was there with her, dressed in his football gear, probably for practice, and smiling down at her as he talked to her. He couldn’t decipher El’s expression, a mixture of friendliness and confusion shown by her furrowed eyebrows and slanted smile. What was he telling her?

But suddenly, Brad wasn’t talking to her anymore. He placed his hands on her shoulders and closed his eyes, leaning down until his lips were on hers. El kept her eyes open, her face still as Brad kissed her.

If she closed her eyes, if she had kissed back eventually, Mike didn’t know.

Because by that point, he had turned around and was running away from El, letting his anger take him away from her too soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....let me know what you think


	4. oh why can't you see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike Wheeler is not El’s boyfriend. So why is he so jealous of the boy who’s trying to be? (In which Mike Wheeler is an idiot and doesn't let people talk.)

He didn't talk the rest of the day. It was like he was in a sort of a haze, hypnotized by what he had seen at the football field. 

El had kissed someone else.

It was dumb to think it wouldn't happen eventually, her being with someone who wasn't him. Part of his fears about being with El was that he would be holding her back from potential relationships. El was incredibly loyal, and he knew that if she ever did feel stuck with him, she wouldn't show it.

But still, he couldn't help but feel hurt. He had seen her face when she’d read his note and she had look excited. She had even been waiting for him under the football bleachers like he'd ask her to, he knew she was there for him. Seeing Brad there though, the way he had smiled at her, looked at her, kissed her, it had been too much for him to stay for an explanation. If there even was an explanation. Maybe she just wanted to kiss someone else.

He didn’t know what that felt like, wanting someone else. For as long as he’d known her, it had always been only El. There was no one before her and after knowing her, he knew she would be it for him. Even while she was gone, even now that he was upset with her, he still only wanted her. She was the only girl he wanted to kiss, hold hands with, call his “girlfriend.” The thought of her not feeling the same, not only wanting him, sent him spiraling again.

He’d ridden his bike home and gone straight upstairs, ignoring his mother’s questions and his little sister’s pleas for a play mate and just threw himself onto his bed. Under the safety of his covers, he breathed in and out, trying not to cry, but feeling the need to. He stayed there a few hours, not doing or saying anything, just thinking about El.

She showed up to his house later, her sweet voice saying, “Is Mike home? I have something important to talk to him about” resonating upstairs to his bedroom. He quickly closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing and stay still, when he heard the sounds of his mother going up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Mike, El is downstairs. She says she has something important to tell you.”

He just kept his eyes closed, pretending that he was asleep until his mom left, closing the door to his room quietly. Downstairs, he heard her tell El that he was asleep, saying he had gotten home looking sick.

“That's fine. I'll just tell him tomorrow. Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler,” he heard her say and even though he couldn't see her face, he imagined her look of disappointment before the door closed.

He hated disappointing her, he did. He felt he’d been doing that a lot lately. But he just couldn’t see her. He was afraid if he did, he’d burst into a million tears and he didn’t want El to see him like that.

Mike wasn’t sure what she wanted to tell him, but he assumed what it was regarding: Brad. He imagined her saying something like, “I’m so sorry, Mike,” followed by a “I just like him more than you,” and finished off with a “we’ll always be friends.”

_Friends_. Ugh.

His mom had gone up to check on him again, agreeing that he looked sick and if he still looked like that in the morning, he wouldn’t go to school. He knew he would definitely still look like a mess. How was he supposed to get over the love of his life in a day?

In the middle of the night, she tried to talk to him again.

Her voice came in a whisper through the walkie-talkie on his nightstand. “Mike, are you awake?”

He stayed quiet, closing his eyes to fight back the tears brimming on his eyes.

“I don’t know if you’re asleep or not. Your mom said you were sick. I just…we need to talk. I hope you feel better and that…never mind, you’re probably not even listening to me right now.” She laughed and it was quiet for a while, before she spoke up again. “Night, Mike.”

Static noise filled the room. Mike knew he couldn’t avoid El forever, but maybe he could pretend he could, just for a little while. Maybe for a little while longer his life could be like static: an unchanging occupancy of nothingness.

* * *

 

In the morning, his mother declared that he looked even worse than he had the day before.

He hadn’t gotten any sleep. Instead he had stayed up, trying to do homework to distract him, but then he finished and was left without anything else to do. He had finished writing the next Dungeons & Dragons campaign earlier in the week, and he had caught up with all the comic book series he read, so Mike really was left without options.

He tried forcing himself to go to sleep, but every time he would start dreaming, he’d wake up. His dreams were filled with visions of him and El, swaying to a light melody under the neon lights at a school dance, holding hands as they strolled down the aisles of book shops and video stores, kissing with only the breeze of a late Hawkins autumn evening to keep them company. And every time, Mike would wake up, as if both his head and heart were reminding that it was all only possible in the figments of his unconscious.

During the day, he was home alone, drowning his sorrows in Eggo waffles and other junk food while he watched cartoons in the living room. His mom had gone to help Holly’s kindergarten teacher with some arts and crafts so it was just Mike, his food, and his animated friends.

Around lunch time, however, the phone rang and he expected it to be one of his parents checking up on him.

“Hello,” he answered, his mouth full of chips.

“Mike, holy shit! Where are you,” Dustin’s voice boomed, through his ear.

“Dustin? Why are you calling me from school?”

“Because-.”

He heard the rest of his friends talking over one another and fighting over the telephone, until finally Lucas won it over. 

“Man, you’re not going to believe what happened with El and Brad! She-.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Lucas,” Mike interrupted. Of course the news of their relationship would have spread around the school by then.

“Mike, seriously, I think you should-.” 

“No! I don’t want to talk about El.”

He hung up the phone, wincing at the slight feeling of guilt when he realized that they probably called him from the payphone at school. He knew he shouldn’t take his anger out on his friends. It was El and Brad he was upset with, after all. But he didn’t want to hear about what people at school were saying. He didn’t want to know about how they were holding hands, how there was already talks of them being voted for the homecoming court and “cutest couple” in the yearbook. He didn’t even want to go to school the next day.

_Shit._ He’d have to go to school the next day and face them both.

From then until the end of their relationship, if it ever ended, he’d have to plaster on a fake smile when he saw them and sputter lies about how happy he was for his friend. If anyone asked about him and El, he’d have to say that they were just friends, best friends, and nothing more. He’d have to see her don the cheerleader outfit he’d never be able to feel and lip gloss he’d never be able to taste.

Just the thought sent him back to his room, dragging himself up the stairs until he plopped down on his bed, face down and secretly hoping the overwhelming smell of detergent on his sheets would suffocate him. Instead, it sent him to sleep and it wasn’t until hours later that someone sat next to him and a soft hand ran through his hair that he woke up.

He squinted his eyes, adjusting to the light and seeing that it was El who was there with him. He thought he was dreaming again, another cruel reminder of the impossible, but as he opened his eyes and sat up, he realized it was really her. She smiled gently at him, her honeydew eyes seeming like they had a smile of her own.

“Hi,” she whispered, laughing a little.

“Hi,” he whispered back.

They were both quiet for a while. El seemed nervous, her leg bouncing up and down quickly, and Mike wondered if she had come to break the news to him of her new relationship.

“I told your mom that I brought you the homework that you missed.” She pointed to his desk where she had left the books and the handouts he’d need.

“Thanks.”

“I've been trying to talk to you since yesterday,” she hummed softly.

“You sure about that?”

He stood up from the bed, walking over to the desk to pretend to look through the papers she’d brought him, so that he wouldn’t have to look at her. He didn’t want to look at her and her pretty little face and be reminded of what could have happened. If he did, he’d cry and the last thing he needed was for El to think he was weak.

“I waited for you under the bleachers but you never showed up.”

“Oh, I showed up. You were just too busy to see me.”

“Too busy? What do you-,” and then the realization settled on her face. He had turned to look at her just in time to see it. “You saw when Brad kissed me.”

“How could you, El,” he asked, surprised by how strained the question came out and by the hot tears he felt fall to his cheek. “I mean, I know we're not dating or anything, but I always thought there was some understanding.”

“No, you're not the one understanding. Let me explain-.”

She stood up and walked over to him, trying to hold his hand, but he pulled away.

“I’ve been such an idiot. I actually thought you liked me back. I had created some fantasy in my head that you did and that we would date, but now I know it's never going to happen. You've outgrown me, you've outgrown all of us.”

“Outgrown? Mike, how could you think that?" 

“You’re popular now, El! We haven’t really seen you the past few days because you’ve been going to the mall with cheerleaders and kissing football players. And I’m happy for you, El. I am because you’re amazing and you deserve to be popular and well liked. But you’ve left me behind. I didn’t want to think that you would ever leave me behind, I wanted to think that we would be friends forever. I was even hoping we could be more. You know I was! But I saw you kissing him, so obviously you don’t feel the same-.”

“I rejected him for you!” 

Her voice was louder than he’d expected it to be, and the lights in the room flickered on and off briefly before it stopped and everything, the flickering, their yells, his heart, came to a quiet standstill.

“What?”

“I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old,” she choked out, tears falling from her eyes and her hands rolled up into fists at her sides. “When Brad asked me out, I only said yes because I didn't think you would. And yesterday, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I was confused because I thought we were just friends. He kissed me and you know what? I didn't feel anything. It was nothing like when you kiss me. And I told him that. I told him how I couldn't be his girlfriend or date him because I was already taken… by you.”

“Wait, El. Hold on.”

He went to grab her hand, to calm her down. Her breathing sounded fast and heavy, and he wanted her to be safe, but she pushed him off.

“No! I've done everything for you, Michael Wheeler! Everything. And you still think that I'd leave you or my friends for some boy who means nothing to me? I wanted to talk to you to tell you that. To apologize for the past week, to ask you to the dance, to be my boyfriend. But we're done.”

Done. The word pierced through him, making his stomach turn in knots and the tears come back to his eyes.

“El, wait-.”

“You said it yourself. I'm a bad friend.”

She ran past him, slamming the door. He tried to go after her, but the door wouldn’t open, knowing it was probably because she was using her powers so that he wouldn’t get to her.

“Eleven,” he yelled, punching the door with all the the force he could. He went over to the window, seeing her get on her bike and ride away quickly. “El, stop! I’m sorry!”

He yelled after her, but she just became a smaller and smaller figure on the road, until she was gone.

“Come back, I’m sorry,” he cried, over and over and over. To the window, into the walkie-talkie, on the phone, but there was no response.

She was gone, and so was he.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one. chapter. left. aaahh!! i have honestly been so overwhelmed with the daily kudos and comments on this story and don't want you to think it goes under appreciated. every typed word from you guys means the world to me. i'll try to make the last chapter to this story the best ever, and i'll try to have that up soon :)


	5. dance with you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In which Mike Wheeler is an idiot, but in a good way.)

“Michael Wheeler, I will not let you go crazy over some girl!”

“She's not _some_ girl! She's El! I love her!”

“You are fifteen years old, Michael! Go upstairs, now!”

His mom just couldn't understand. She never could understand what it meant to be in love with someone with your whole being. To love someone enough to be completely unselfish, entirely unrealistic, and always patient.

When El had disappeared for almost a year, Mike had never given up hope that she would come back. He felt it everywhere in his body, every bone, every vein, every strand of hair, that they belonged together. That was enough to send him sneaking out of his house almost every night to walk around Mirkwood, a flashlight in hand as he searched for her. It was enough to have him spend most of his free time at school on the heath kit, trying to reach out to her.

His mother had been concerned about his, what she called, obsession with El. She told him repeatedly how she couldn't understand his attachment to her after only having known her for a week. But it wasn't about the amount of time they spent together, it was about how they had spent it. El had saved his life over and over, she had helped find his best friend, she had laughed with him, held his hand, liked him back. It had been a short time, Mike knew that, but she had done more than enough to earn a permanent spot in his heart. He couldn't just forget her.

After she had returned, his mother's worriment only grew. Mike was constantly with her, at their house or her new one with the Byers and Hopper, and when he wasn't physically with her, she was all he’d talk about. He was so young, too young to be so enamored with only one person and she had hoped that maybe with time, things would calm down. But their connection only grew, something that was obvious to anyone by simply noticing the way the two looked at each other, eyes locked in place and radiating tension that showed by the brightness in their eyes and the slight curve of their lips.

It was because of this transparent attraction to one another that Karen Wheeler was surprised to hear the two teens bickering, their volume going far beyond normal. It was also because of the strange phenomenon that she was easily alerted when she heard her son trying to sneak out past midnight. She had caught him just as he had left out the front door, walking towards his bike so he could ride over to El’s house and quickly yelled at him to go inside.

He had explained how he had to see El, his life depended on it. He'd spent all day trying to contact her on their walkie-talkies. He had called her house over and over again, the phone always being answered by Joyce, Hopper, or Will, but never by El herself, who they told him couldn't talk at the moment. He had asked his mom for permission to go over to see her, but his mom kept refusing, saying that maybe their time apart would be good for them. So of course Mike’s only option was to sneak out of his house while everyone was asleep. Unfortunately, the plan hadn't worked for him.

“I know you're mad at me right now, honey,” his mom told him, her voice calmer than before. She leaned on the door frame of his room as she watched him take off his shoes and cover himself under blankets. “But trust me, El, and her parents, would probably be mad if you went to try and smooth things over right now.”

Deep down, he knew she was probably right. But he was too mad at himself and too impatient to see El again to think clearly. Instead, he went to bed, thinking about El and hoping that the hours until he’d see her again at school would go by quickly.

The next day he woke up earlier than usual, motivated by his need to see her and apologize. He quickly got ready, barely eating anything, and raced on his bike to his friends’ house, so that they’d go to school together. He wanted to wait by El’s locker before she got to school, so that she wouldn’t be able to avoid him. With his friends’ slow paces in movement, though, that would never happen.

“C’mon, guys,” he groaned, “We have to get to school.”

“Why, Michael, you seem excited to go to school today,” Dustin said suggestively, riding up to him with a shit-eating grin that spanned from one ear to the other.

“Yeah, Mike,” Lucas joined in, wiggling his eyebrows, “Are you excited to see your girlfriend or something?”

“El is definitely not my girlfriend. I don’t even think she’s my friend right now,” Mike grumbled, pedaling faster.

“What?!”

“What do you mean she’s not your girlfriend,” Lucas yelled, now catching up with his speed. “Everyone at school yesterday was talking about how El dumped Brad because she liked you! We even asked her about it and she said she was going to talk to you about it after school.”

“What the hell happened,” Dustin asked, out of breath as he rode his bike a little behind his friends.

“I saw Brad kissing El on Wednesday and I freaked out about it. And yesterday when she came over, I thought she was going to tell me that she was with him now. But we got in a fight because apparently that’s not what happened.”

“This is why you always let girls talk first. It avoids a lot of problems.” 

“I really messed up,” Mike spoke up after a while, feeling the same gut wrenching pain he had felt yesterday. Hearing him say it aloud to his friends, it felt so real. He had hurt El’s feelings and before anything else, she was his friend. He hadn’t treated her like one yesterday. 

“Maybe it’s not as bad as you think,” Lucas suggested. They all parked their bikes at the side of the school, securing it with their locks.

“Yeah, maybe she just needed a day to calm down.” Dustin patted Mike on his back reassuringly, but by the time they looked up, they saw that Will had shown up to school alone.

“Shit,” he muttered, seeing the look of empathy on Will’s face as he walked up to them to park his bike. “She’s not coming because of me.”

“I’m sorry, Mike,” Will said, his voice making him smaller than he really was. “She’s just really sad, so Mom let her stay home.”

“How mad is she with me?”

“She’s not mad, she’s just…upset.” Mike’s expression faltered even more, a look on his face that he’d never had before. It was beyond sad- it was heartbroken. Will must have recognized it because he added quickly in comfort, “Give her the day. I think you both need a little room to breathe.”

His friends slung their arms around his shoulders as they entered the school, ready to distract him from his heartbreak. The task became impossible however, when Mike was bombarded with questions from the students, people that he had never once talked to, about his presumed relationship. Was it true he was dating El? Why did he have a vendetta against Brad? Was he so, so happy now that he had a girlfriend?

Even his English teacher asked him, “Mike, is your girlfriend joining us today or is she absent,” causing Mike to erupt into a blush that made the boys in his class laugh and the girls sigh dreamily. If only they knew. It was at that point that he was beginning to think that maybe he should have followed El’s lead and stayed home. He was getting tired of getting ask so many gossipy questions, and even more tired of ignoring them all and feeling rude for it.

But it wasn’t until lunchtime when he saw Brad in the cafeteria that he felt terrified, wishing people would come up to him and keep a conversation, so that Brad wouldn’t say anything to him. Unfortunately, it never happened and the six-foot-tall athlete noticed the AV club nerd across the room, calling out his name as he walked to him.

“Wheeler!”

Mike mentally cursed himself. He could run, maybe, but Brad would probably catch up to him. He took a deep breath, and turned around slowly to see him, feigning a small smile. “Umm, hi, Brad. What do you need?”

It was then that Mike noticed that they had the attention of almost everyone in the cafeteria, the room going silent until Mike and Brad started looking at them, and the separate conversations started up again.

“They’re all just staring because they think I’m gonna fight you or something,” Brad laughed, as if the idea of the two of them fighting was the world’s funniest joke.

“Why would you fight me?”

“Because of El. Everyone knows that she chose you over me.”

Mike felt a lump in his throat, his mouth suddenly going dry at Brad’s directness. “I’m sorry about that. I really didn’t know she would do that-.”

“Don’t worry about it, Wheeler,” he smiled, too wide and too warm to not be genuine. “I just came to tell you that you’re really lucky and to let you know that if anyone tells you that I’m mad at you, they’re lying.”

“Oh, umm…thanks, Brad.”

Brad smiled and began to walk away, before he turned back to look at Mike. “And I knew by the way." 

“Knew what?”

“That she’d choose you. It was obvious by the way she talked about you.” 

* * *

 

On Saturday mornings, the first thing Mike usually thought of were the blueberry pancakes his mother had waiting for him downstairs in the kitchen. That Saturday, however, Mike opened his eyes and he immediately thought of the homecoming dance. It was that day, starting in the evening and taking place in the school’s gymnasium just like every other dance. He thought of the student body members and teachers who were probably decorating the place with streamers and balloons at the moment. He thought about his friends who were excited to be attending later. He thought about El, who he would be going with if he wasn’t such an idiot.

Getting up from bed, he put on some jeans and some sneakers before sprinting past his mother to get his bike downstairs. The dance wouldn’t be until a few hours from then. If he talked to El and apologized, maybe it wouldn’t be to late to go together. On the way to her house, he thought of asking her to eat breakfast with him in the small diner in town, where she loved the waffles and the maple syrup that always seemed to dribble down to her chin. He’d apologize there, in the red velvet booth they both loved so much, and hopefully it would be enough to have her back in his life.

He stopped his bike in front of the Byers’ and Hoppers’ house, breathing in and out as he made his way up the steps to knock on the door. Mike bounced on the soles of his feet, waiting anxiously to see El’s soft face again, the same one he dreamed about it every night, but when it opened he saw Will’s sympathetic one instead.

“Mike,” he breathed, closing the door behind him so he could talk to Mike outside.

“Can I talk to El,” he asked, trying not to sound annoyed at seeing him and not her. 

“She’s not here. Mom took her out super early because she said she should get out of the house. They went with Hop for breakfast and then they said they were going shopping or something.”

“So she’s still upset?”

“Let’s just say this is currently a ‘Mike-Wheeler-free' home,” he said, using air quotes.

“Shit,” Mike grumbled, jumping off porch and kicking the dirt up into a dust cloud. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry and I just want to tell her!”

“You should leave, Mike. She’s still really sad about everything.”

“You know I’m sorry, don’t you? You…you have to know that I’ve never regretted something so much in my entire life. You have to know that I love her more than anything, that this isn’t what I wanted to happen.”

Will nodded and opened the door again so he could go back inside. “See you on Monday, Mike.” 

Mike knew that he should want to cry. One of his best friends had quite literally shut him out. He wasn’t any closer to having El back in his life. But as he got on his bike and looked back at the house one last time, he saw the window of El’s bedroom and something inside of him clicked. Instead of going back to his house, he drove into town, the fierceness inside him growing.

He knew what he had to do.

* * *

He looked at himself once more in the mirror, making sure his black tie looked okay and was in proportion with his white button down and black slacks. He smiled at himself, grabbing the rest of the things he needed, and went downstairs. His mom stared at him as he made his way to the door, and he saw that she wanted to say something to him, but instead she just smiled.

“Have fun, sweetie,” she told him, her voice not so convincing, but she was trying. He knew she was.

“Thanks, Mom,” he smiled back, closing the door. 

He put everything in the basket he’d borrowed from his mom that he’d attached to the back of his bike. Getting on and riding away, Mike enjoyed the cool breeze blowing against as he made his way back to the house he’d been at earlier. The sun was setting, turning the sky into an array of oranges and pinks that kept him calm and inspired him to keep going.

Once he got there, he set his bike down quietly. All the lights were off, but he knew El was home. Mike had called Will one last time just to make sure.

Mike grabbed the small boom box out of the bike’s basket and put it next to his feet. He made sure once more that the correct cassette tape was put in and that the stereo’s volume was at maximum. He looked at the house once more from his crouched position, praying that she would come out. _It’s now or never_ , he thought, pressing play and standing up in time for the song to start.

They had gone to see _Top Gun_ at the theater together over the summer. She had swooned over Tom Cruise and the oh-so romantic scene where his character tried to win over a girl by singing to her. He’d told her that it was embarrassing, but she had argued that that was what had made it even cuter. That’s how knew she knew the song. That’s how he knew she knew exactly what he was trying to do.

“Watching every motion, in my foolish lover's game,” he sung loudly above the music. He saw the light from her window immediately turn on and tried his hardest not to laugh as he continued. “On this endless ocean, finally lovers know no shame.”

By that point it wasn’t so much singing as it was him screaming the lyrics, but it was enough to get her outside. She walked out in sweatpants and a faded Star Wars t-shirt of his that he had forgotten about, but she still looked beautiful. She always did. He sang and screamed the next lyrics to her with complete earnestness.

“Take my breath away." 

She started to walk towards him slowly, and he could tell she was trying hard not to smile, a small curve of her lips threatening to show itself. Then she finally cracked, a wide smile spreading all throughout her as she laughed at how ridiculous he sounded. He kept singing the song to her, feeling a brand of happiness that was reserved especially for El. She went down to the boom box and lowered the volume a bit, trying to tell him that it was okay for him to stop singing. 

“Is that my t-shirt,” he asked her, his smile matching her own.

“You left it here last time we got wet with the sprinklers,” she defended herself, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“I thought you were mad at me?” 

“I am, but I still like wearing your clothes.”

He breathed in and out, making sure she heard him. “I’m so sorry, El. I’ve been the biggest idiot in the world.”

“You have been.” 

“I just…I never thought you would ever like me back. You’re the best person in the world and I’m not even close. And seeing you with Brad, it made me feel jealous and insecure. I thought you were going to leave me.”

She grabbed his face in both of her hands, making him look at her instead of the ground. They felt warm, like always, but he still shuddered at her touch. It had been so long since he’d been so close to her.

“I would never leave you. I love you, Mike.”

“I love you, too- _so_ much. And I’m sorry that I hurt you, that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.”

He put his hands over hers, stroking her knuckles gently back and forth with his thumbs.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, too. I guess, maybe a part of me wanted you to be jealous just so that you’d ask me out. But I should have never done that. I should have just been honest.”

“Friends don’t lie. We both should have been honest.”

She pulled him towards her, draping her arms over him and nuzzling her face into his neck as he wrapped his arms around her waist. He wanted to press her to him more, to feel more of the person that he had missed so much. She took herself away from him, her arms still around his neck, and cocked her head towards the sunflowers that’d he forgotten he’d put in the basket for her.

“Are those for me?”

“No, they’re for some other girl I’m gonna go confess my love to after I leave here.”

She laughed slightly, pouting her lips and pushing away from his chest. He reached down for the sunflowers and gave them to her, once again wrapping his arms against her waist, but this time even tighter.

“They reminded me of you. They’re bright and yellow, and always reaching towards the light.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“So are you.”

She smiled up at him with her wide eyes, but he closed his then as she leaned in until her lips were pressed onto his. They both smiled against each other, giggling as they both tried to drown in each other, his hands roaming up and down her back and hers dropping the flowers so she could run her fingers through his hair. He had missed this.

They stopped once they couldn’t stop laughing, bursting at the seams with happiness. He still held her close as she steadied herself by holding on to his shoulders. Foreheads pressed against each other, she breathed in deeply and with her exhale let out a question for him.

“Mike Wheeler, will you be my boyfriend?”

He looked at her through his eyelashes, a blush growing on his cheeks at the sound of those words. “You still want me to be your boyfriend?”

“No, I was just practicing to ask that to some other boy after you leave.”

He laughed as she smirked at him, brushing a strand of hair away from her face and keeping his hand on her cheek. She was real. El, who was beyond beauty and kindness and wonderment, was really with him. She’d asked him the question that he heard a million times before, but only in his dreams. He looked at her so that she knew he was real, too. 

“I’d love to be your boyfriend.”

He leaned down once more, pressing a soft kiss to her lips, taking in his first kiss with his girlfriend. The only he ever wanted, the only one he knew then that he’d ever have.

They both stared at each other, taking in each other’s faces in the last few moments of light that they had, when he remembered what he had been meaning to ask her. He grabbed the flowers from the ground and held them out to her again, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand as he gave her a sheepish grin.

“Anyways, I know this is last minute, and I was meaning to ask you a while ago, but do you want to go to the dance with me?”

She smiled at him, biting her lip before she kissed him once more, and he knew what her answer was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we made it!!! 
> 
> thank you so much to all of you who checked back constantly, left kudos, subscribed, wrote comments, or just now binged this whole story (hi, ur very lucky you didn't have to wait) !! 
> 
> as a token of my gratitude, if any of you have any writing requests/prompts for me, you can leave them in the comments and i’ll gladly take them
> 
> all of my love, julia

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [and suddenly you're mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11435454) by [topangamatthews](https://archiveofourown.org/users/topangamatthews/pseuds/topangamatthews)




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